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Random Black and White Photos of Paris

The top photo is a garden behind Musee Carnavalet. The middle photo is (I think) somewhere in the Latin Quarter while the bottom photo is my husband shooting the Opera Garnier. Can you tell what I am thinking of today?

The photo in the middle shows the entrance of l"Harmattan a very good bookstore selling lots of books in foreign languages. It is located at the corner of the Rue Monge and Rue des Ecoles in the 5th arrondissement, about 3 bloks South of Place Maubert and Boulevard Saint-Germain

I agree, Toni, and I think for kids growing up when we did - mid to late 20th century - often our first view ws black and white photos in, say, Life or Time Magazine.

Alain, I thought that was where it was, but when our computer crashed a few months, back the photos got jumbled. On our first trip, we fell in love with a small park in that area and sat there feeding cashews to pigeons. We were back in 2007 in search of a shop on Rue Daubentin. I think. It was the day we walked down Rue Buffon.

If you were walking down rue Daubenton and then Rue Buffon the park was probably the marvelous and pretty large Jardin Des Plantes that is partially located between these 2 streets.If you are alluding to a much smaller park that is just a few blocks due South East of the intersection of Rue des Ecoles and Rue Monge where your photo was taken, you are alluding to Les Arènes de Lutèce. Located on Rue Monge, this is a very lovely park with lots of kids, moms and nannies, and... pigeons. In that spectacular site you can admire the famous ''arènes'' (open-air stone theater)one of the last remnants of Gallo-Roman architecture from the time when Paris was called Lutetia (Lutèce) during the Roman conquest of the country that was known at the time as Gaule.

Actually, the garden is called Square Paul Langevin, but I had forgotten its name. It took some fancy footwork on Google to get it. We've visited the Jardin des Plantes, but entered from the other side.

For some reason, we've never made it to Arenes Lutece, Alain. Next time.

Mimi, Of course... Now I feel stupid.I should have guessed it, since that very tiny micro-park is just across the street from the bookstore in your photo. Exactly at the corner of Rue des Ecoles and Rue Monge. I happened to have read my newspaper on one of its benches a few times in that square when I was a student at the Sorbonne. Did you have a chance to take a look at the "frise" against the wall,at the back of the garden? It is quite an intriguing piece with lots of masonic symbols. Thank you for reminding me of that square Mimi.

No need to: I forget more than I remember these days, Alain. I could not recall the park name, and I really had a hard time finding it online, although I did find it a few years back.

It was May 1, 2005. We had walked from Boulevard L'Hopitel to Gare de Lyon and then all the way across the Marais, crossing to Ile St. Louis at Pont Marie. We hung around in the tourist heart of Paris, and then made for the Sorbonne, got tired on an uphill climb, and stopped at this park. I had cashews in my bag, and we fed some very brazen pigeons while children played nearby.

Then we got lost near the Pantheon, and wandered for what seemed like hours in the Latin Quarter, got approached by a well-dressed male panhandler (who yelled at us). We rested somewhere near Geoffrey St. Hilaire and this lovely women who looked like MFK Fisher chatted with us. We finally got back to our hotel on Rue Jenner, just exhausted.